Author: Xinran Li

Title: The Palace

By: Shuang Lyu & Xinran Li

Background

This is a completely CG scene of traditional Chinese architecture. The inspiration is from Building Fan which was a famous building in Song Dynasty. The scene is based on a traditional old painting which was done by Xiaoyou Zhang in 1994. The painting shows that there are many people going in and out of the Building Fan, which indicates how prosperous and flourishing the place is. We aim to restore this beautiful scene through CG technique.

Software:

Autodesk Maya, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine 5

Reflections:

Overall, it was a very enjoyable collaboration. Shuang and I shared our ideas for a realistic Chinese-style scene before the project started and decided to work together on this FMP. we are both very planned and responsible people, so communication and follow-up were easy during the project. At the beginning of the project we planned out everyone’s division of labour and timeline, and in addition to regular Wechat communication, we also had weekly meetings to check on the progress of each week’s work and to follow up on what needed to be produced the following week.

One of the more challenging parts of the project for me was the complexity of modelling traditional Chinese architecture and the need to learn a new software for me, UE5. The same goes for the textures. Furthermore, my unfamiliarity with the UE5 software made me spend more time on the lighting.

All in all, I have gained a lot from this project experience. I am very grateful to my teammate Shuang Lyu, and hope that in the future we can keep doing what we love, and keep learning and challenging new things, becoming good 3D environmental designers.

We tested different angles and colours of sunlight and finally chose dusk as the final rendering light, which gave the scene a more realistic look and allowed for the inclusion of a sunset animation.

We added a depth channel to the render so that we could edit the depth of field of the scene in Nuke, Shuang was responsible for this part.

For the last shot we tried a number of different sizes and colours of sunlight to make the sunlight as unobtrusive and harsh as possible, and although the final result was not the most satisfactory, it was much improved compared to the previous one.

Before settings up the cameras and lights, we added trees to the scene.

Then we tested shots from different angles

Based on the reference picture, I tried to make the material of the pavilion similar to the material in the picture, but slightly different.

We applied similar textures to corridors and buildings

Adding textures to the models in UE5 and starting to refine the scene layout step by step

We also made adjustments to our modles, we bevelled our models to make sure they looks better in UE5.

We tried differents looking of the fences and choose the left one

Referred to traditional Chinese architecture, we found the the roof should look like this than Shuang adjusted it.

Shuang also made the corner of the corridors and put them into UE5 along with textures.

I downloaded lanterns from online and adjusted the color of it

Set up the lanterns along the walkway

Adjusted the models, colors, and textures of the models we downloaded from UE5 Documentation

Downloaded lotus from online

Continue to build the scene and create cameras for the scene, testing different camera angles and rendering effects

I built the fence which may be put surrouned the buildings and pavillions.

Built up the bridge

I kept building up the scene, putting all the elements into Maya first

I made the roof of the corridors and sent to Shuang, she made the body of it and put them together

Then I put the corridors into the scene, which made the scene more gradually started to come together

I started to arrage the layout in UE5. Refered to the layout we made in Maya, I created cubes and some simple geometries in the scene.

Adjust the color of the water

Then, I tried to put models into it

Shuang combined our roof with the body of the building and rendered out several pictures of it

We downloaded models from UE5 Documentation than kept putting our modles into the scene

Then I started to build the pavilion, this is the reference photo

Similar to the way I built the roof, the pavilion was divided into four.

Duplicate it

Then, I added columns and beams to the pavilion

Add decorations to the pavilion

Add basement and stairs

Final look

After finishing building the roof, we were supposed to combine the roof and the body of the building together. However, there are gaps between the roof and the body. Therefore, I looked for the references of traditional Chinese architectures, and I found out that most of them, there are wooden structures filling up the gap.

Therefore, I need to add another layer between the roof and the body.

Convert polygon edges to curves again and extrude them:

Use the Multi-Cut tool to add lines to the roof, then extrude them

Arrange the cubes I made

Final look

Before start building the scene, I looked for more references of the scene.

To save the time, we decieded to build the roofs and the body of the buildings seperately.

I am responsible for the roofs, here are some working processes.

This is the base shape of the roof, I shared this with Shuang, so she could know how big the body of the building would be.

I devided the roof into four, so I could just model one fourth of them, then duplicate.

Use soft selection to move the corner of the roof up a bit.

Convert polygon edges to curves and extrude them.

Then wedge the faces

Then add some details to the roof edges, I found some references here

Select the roof edges and extrude them once, then turn the “Keep Faces Together” off, extrude them several times.

Which may finally looks lik this

Select the base shape of the roof and extrude some thickness

Duplicate the model

Shuang firstly built a layout of the whole scene, which is convenient for us to confirm which buildings need to be modelled.

To save our time, I am going to model the upper parts of buildings and pavilions, including the roof, crossbeam and some wooden decorations. Shuang is going to model the structure of those, including steps, pillars and so on.

Here are some references.

The structure of the main building is going to be like this:

I decide to model the roof first, here are some references for the roof and the structure below the roof.